Meeting the research(er) and the researched halfway

How can we investigate something so indeterminate, unpredictable and enormous, as the current Covid-19 pandemic? We apply Karen Barad’s relational ontology to illuminate some current dilemmas in research, where different forces, concepts and theories conflict with one another in multiple and complex ways. Barad’s views, we argue, may help to address potential dilemmas of accountability, for instance of accounting research(ers) as they research the Covid-19 pandemic. In what Barad calls ‘intra-action’, the research apparatus, the researched phenomena, and the research results, constitute a complex system of relatedness. In ‘intra-action’ these elements never fully melt into one another, but rather, retain their ontological individuality. The research apparatus creates ‘real’ effects, but these can only be partially observed and disentangled. Which elements intra-act as the research progresses is the product of so-called ‘agential cuts’. We have researched the Covid-19 pandemic via what Barad would call a (small-scale) ‘experiment’. We have focused on air travel and more specifically on American Airlines: a hyperobject or social-economic object so complex and powerful that it cannot be captured in any single definition or analysis. Among others, we take guidance from Albert Camus’ The Plague in our analysis, concluding that AA (as a hyperobject) cannot really meet the research(ers) halfway, as Barad would call for. This is because the mutuality of ‘intra-action’, that is demanded is foreclosed. Consequently, while we believe that Barad’s views hold great merit for accounting research in the current crisis, we suggest that they raise deeply troubling dilemmas as well.